MORTAL COIL

My best friend Andrj Nana and I left our home town on a crisp, winter morning. There was a winter sun in the sky – one whose rays do not transfer warmth, only pierce the eye. It is almost always sunny in our country of birth, and it never snows. We knew that we would come face to face with snow at some point on our journey and we had each taken a warm coat. 

We had to cover a distance of more than two thousand kilometres north-west . Andrj was prepared to proceed even further than that. It was that second journey of his that made me ill-tempered and depressed during the long hours we spent on the train. What vexed me most of all was that Andrj didn’t show any signs of hesitation. His features were soft as usual and determined as I had never seen them before. 

We travelled by train because we both had limited resources; what we could afford was a seat in a second-class carriage of an international express. It was a long journey but it was not tedious. Ours was one of those ultra-modern vehicles that could speed up to three hundred kilometres per hour. The borders of the countries we passed through had been made fictitious a long time ago, so there were no tedious delays at the crossing points. Ours might have even passed for a nice journey if it wasn’t for its final goal. It was actually a service we were after. The people who offered it tried to advertise it as the ultimate health service. 

We travelled on. We left Split heading for a city in the north where the ultimate health service was legally provided. In Split, heavy rain poured from the grey sky. 

Hours later we left Wien, heading for the city where the ultimate health service was legally and freely provided. Nothing out of order happened in Wien. 

The moment came to leave Paris as well. We were on our way to the city where the ultimate service was freely and legally, and even beautifully provided. 

“Wait a minute!” I spoke for the first time to Andrj after an hour of silence had passed between us. 

 “Why do we have to cross the entire continent ? Isn’t there one of these so-called clinics just a few blocks away from your house?!” 

I must have asked this question before; I didn’t care; I just wanted to hear his voice. Andrj answered me patiently. 

“Because I, as is consistent with common human nature, I am a cost-effective creature. Men are doomed to always compare things, you see. It is a basic cognitive ability and some of us are satisfied to make use of it and don’t go any further. I have researched more than 50 clinics, all over Europe. The one we are going to provides the best quality of service compared to prices. It is a long way, I know. I am so sorry to cause that much inconvenience to you!” 

“Cost-effectiveness.” I ignored his apology. “The simplest philosophy of life.“ 

“The simplest philosophy of life.” Andrj agreed quietly. 

“Life philosophy?!“ I shouted at him. “This is madness!” 

Andrj smiled softly. He understood perfectly well that I wasn’t talking about the cost-effectiveness of the service. I was talking about the service itself! 

“You can call it the modern man’s obsession with the freedom of movement. In our corner of the world we believe it to be a universal and absolute freedom. It is the right of passage that  is left for us to yearn for - now when we have every other right taken for granted. So, please shut up and enjoy the journey into which your foolish friend has driven you. You don’t travel much these days, do you?” 

I didn’t. I had a wife and two kids to provide for, I didn’t have a lot of spare dough to oblige the modern man’s touristic obsession. I earned considerably more than him, though. Philosophers are not paid well in any part of the world, I supposed. Not nowadays, not in the future, not in the past. I knew for sure that Emmanuel Kant could never put aside enough money to afford marriage. 

As we travelled on, the atmosphere in our carriage got no brighter than the one in Kant’s bachelor’s lodgings. We travelled in an empty carriage during the last part of the journey. As if the world around us, the objective world, knew Andrj’s subjective desire and gave him enough privacy to relish it. 

Maybe Andrj was a hero, after all, an adventurer, a great traveller, I reflected in a sudden fit of remorse. He was heading for the kingdom that some people pretended to have visited, others pretended to have seen in visions, but no one was ever able to prove anything.  

Whereas I was like a character from an independent European film: troubled by existential anxieties and full of neurotic questions. 

“Why do it in the middle of the winter?” I growled. “Couldn’t you postpone it for a milder season?” 

“You know what my condition is. Soon it might get impossible for me to travel.” 

I looked at him closely. It is a well-known fact: we are not quick to notice a negative change in someone we see often, someone we love. However, objective reality always strikes back. I got the shivers now that I looked at Andrj’s sunken eyes, his drooping, haggard shoulders, his white hair thinning in a not beautiful way.  

He was not old in years. He was not old but his eyes had acquired that opaque, introverted look that aged men have. He moved his limbs like an old butterfly would move his wings. A butterfly who didn’t believe that a flutter of his wings can raise a hurricane at the other end of the world. 

I sighed. He sighed too. 

I rumpled the brochure of the clinic between my palms. 

“HERMES” I read the name of the clinic with hate. “Don’t you think the name is rather pretentious?”

“With HERMES you will dine in Arcadia tonight.” Andrj quoted the ad and chuckled quietly. 

“Except that your appointment is for three thirty in the afternoon. A little too early for dinner.“ I tried to sound sarcastic.

“I guess it is always one and the same hour at the table of the gods,” Andrj said a little dreamily. I sensed his desire was almost palpable. Maybe because his desire was rational, fixed and immovable. 

He shook his head. “In fact, I think that it is quite shrewd.”

I looked at him questioningly. 

“The HERMES advertising slogan,” he explained. “Let’s see what happens when you take out the letter “n” from the word “dine”! 

I preferred not to see. 

“Since the thing was legalised, these … clinics have grown like mushrooms. They are just another proof that you can advertise anything.” 

I knew that mine was a causa perdutta, but I was an obstinate fellow. 

“How do they dare call it a health service, anyway!” This time there was not a shadow of a question from my side. It was sheer protest. 

Andrj gave me a look of mock surprise. 

 “Don’t you know the proverb that death is the best psychiatrist?”

I tried to bite back. 

“Speaking of that,” I said. “Should you have not consulted someone?” 

“Do you think, I’m crazy?” Andrj looked genuinely offended. 

“But… but.”

“I think we have arrived,” said Andrj, throwing a calm look through the window. 

The building made a good impression - the way it presided over a small square. What spoiled the impression were the puddles of blackish, squashy, half frozen water scattered around the square. I conjectured that black snow had fallen in this city some time ago, and nobody had taken care to clean it. I was surprised. One would not expect such a thing from a northern nation. One would expect it from a southern nation like ours. Wasn’t our continent a melting pot already? I thought in amazement. Suddenly, after two thousand kilometres travelled, I did not feel too far from home. This did not make things easy in any way. 

We had to zigzag our way between the puddles to keep our shoes dry. At least I did it. 

“The swamp of hell,” Andrj murmured. “The unjust will slip into it and remain covered with the stench of hell forever.” 

He walked straight ahead as if hypnotized. 

The building looked larger from the inside. There were people with crutches, people with bandaged eyes and faces, people lying on wheeled beds, pushed around by paramedics. I was dismayed by the fact that the HERMES clinic was situated in an ordinary general hospital. Then I remembered that the human being is a cost- effective being in its essence. I wondered if there were places in the world where people waited patiently in enormous queues for the ultimate experience of death. Why not? If it was cheap enough. 

Andrj’s hand rose feebly towards a large yellow sign hanging from the ceiling. He was stunned by the presence of all those sick people as well.

The sign showed us where to go. 

HERMES 

5th FLOOR

It said with its yellow amiability. We took the elevator. Another surprise awaited us on the fifth floor. 

The elevator’s door opened on a not very spacious landing. A white wall loomed before our eyes some ten metres from us. We needed some seconds to grasp what word formed the six enormous letters written on the wall. It was a name. The name of the most mysterious of the gods. H E R M E S. 

The light grey colour and the font of the letters were so adroitly chosen that the inscription seemed to float serenely over the white wall. In the middle of the wall there was a glass door, unrealistically small. Soft yellow light oozed through the glass. The door looked so small, that only one person could pass through it at a time, provided that she or he was not very corpulent. I tried to remember the proverb concerning the people who could enter the kingdom of heaven. There was something about a needle’s eye and… It was about the rich man. A rich man could hardly ever enter the kingdom of Heaven, not a fat one! Here, in the HERMES clinic, the case appeared to be the opposite. Sorry, Miss Piggy, you don’t fit in! Goodbye, fatso, come back after a ten-year diet! 

A small crowd of people brought an end to my contemplations. 

“Do you know what you come for, wretched souls!? Ye know what will be thine reward!?” The crowd shouted at us. 

“Do you come here to fall asleep? Aren’t you afraid of nightmares!” The crowd bellowed.

 “Sinners! Mortal sinners!” It roared. 

It was a crowd of monks, actually. At least, they looked like monks. They wore brown cassocks made of rough cloth, they had rope instead of belts around their waists, and they had tonsured haircuts. Moreover, they talked like monks, although I was not sure about the last. I had never been inside a congregation of angry monks. 

“Do you think you can play God, brother?”

 A short, stout monk had apparently identified Andrj as the only legitimate client of the HERMES clinic. 

Andrj held up his right hand with an open palm towards the monks, like a Roman citizen saluting the Roman senate before delivering a great speech in his defence. Nothing came out of his mouth. 

I looked around. I saw sleeping bags and backpacks propped against the wall. The monks had made themselves a bivouac here. They had settled down permanently before the entrance to the HERMES clinic in a zealous attempt to thwart sinners from committing an ultimate sin. 

The monks looked tidy, all of them were cleanly shaven, but they emitted the well-known aroma of a long-unbathed human body. I could understand thatl. You can shave in the toilet but it is a hard thing to find a free shower room in a public hospital. 

The stink transformed the monks from frightening surreal figures into ordinary specimen of the conditio humana species. Besides, they were not our type of monks. Monks in our home country wear black cassocks and have beards. I decided not to take them seriously.  

 “Well,” I said with a sardonic smile. “If this is the door of Hell, let’s find where the doorbell is.”

I approached  the opposite wall and found a button beside  the glass door. The monks didn’t try to stop me physically

“Yes?” A metallic voice cracked from the communicating box. 

I said Andrj’s full name. 

The door opened with a buzz.    

“And remember, brother!” The short stout monk pulled Andrj’s sleeve. 

“Remember to shout the Lord’s name when you slip into the mouth of death! Because the Lord has power even in Hell. The Lord can lift you from hell upon a tongue of fire!“

The door shut automatically behind our backs. 

The air inside was cool and fragranced.

“Good afternoon!” A pleasant voice greeted us. “Welcome to the Hermes clinic!” 

We saw a girl (or was it a boy?) dressed in a hospital uniform – white tunic and white trousers. 

The boy was standing in a corridor, some five meters away from the door. Perhaps, she didn’t want to attract the attention of the monks. 

 “Follow me, please!” 

The girl looked small but she had quite an energetic step. I didn’t like her. 

“We have already received a very warm welcome. You have quite a bunch of guarding angels, there, in front of the door.” I murmured, trying not to fall too far behind her. 

“Ah.“ The girl turned halfway towards me and waved a gesture of indifference with her hand. “The stinking brothers. They are cute. Everybody has their rights, don’t they?”

The insides of the HERMES clinic exuded luxury. The sophisticated way the corridor was lit  - only this sufficed to tell that the place was chic. The sources of light were built into the walls and were thinner than a human finger. They were fluorescent tubes with the simplest geometrical form - a straight line, a curved line, a spiral. I had seen such fluorescent lamps in an art exhibition once. They cost two thousand euro a piece. The shining tubes in the HERMES clinic had different colours – they emitted the most relaxing shades of yellow, white and beige light. 

“A nice place to kick the bucket,” I growled reluctantly and looked at Andrj. He seemed to hold the same opinion. His face was illuminated with satisfaction. He had spent his money in the right place, that was what he was apparently telling himself. He tried to behave like a philosopher with the simplest but most effective philosophy of life.

The corridor opened onto a waiting room that looked more like a hotel lobby bar because of the leather-upholstered, cosy-looking armchairs. Value for money, baby. It was unusually quiet. I looked around and registered that nobody was waiting here. 

The orderly in the white uniform seated me in one of the armchairs and disappeared together with Andrj behind a door which, unlike everything else here, looked very ordinary. 

I had to wait for a terribly long time. The only human being to pass through the waiting room during this time was a nerdish-looking boy with the obligatory white uniform. He said that he was looking for me. He said that as an accompanying person I had to sign some documents. Formalities, he said. He read aloud the document, slowly. I listened to him with half an ear. I wondered what on earth they were doing to Andrj.  

About two hours after he disappeared through that common-looking door, Andrj reappeared dressed in a light-blue hospital gown that reached down to his feet. He wore hospital slippers. He looked awfully vulnerable in this attire. Fragile. 

“What took you so long?!” I asked - my voice at a tremolo pitch. At that moment I was more willing to give in to irritation than to pity and fear. 

“They made the necessary medical tests.”

“Medical tests?!” 

“Medical tests.” 

“Three hours!”

“Medicine is a meticulous science,” Andrj said meekly. 

We must have cut quite a pathetic picture, I thought. A man in a cheap suit pretending to be angry at a gaunt man in a blue pre-operational gown; the latter man pretending to defend himself. It was good that there wasn’t any audience about. 

But I was mistaken. 

“Halloo, halloo, theere! Whoo do I see? Mr. Naana, I suppose?” 

It was a booming man’s voice, polite and discretely cheerful. The voice was lengthening all the vowels as if it fell in love with each word that came out of the voice’s mouth. The voice belonged to a tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in the inevitable trousers and tunic. Except that in his case the garments had a pleasant, bright green colour. 

The man wasn’t exactly young, yet something in the way he carried himself, made him look youngish, boyish, roguish. Or maybe the luscious Rasta haircut was the culprit for this roguish appearance. Dozens of braids were tangling, mingling and fusing into each other in a not very orderly way. The hair was dark brown, just like the man’s skin. 

He shook hands with Andrj. 

“I am Uriel. I am the one to staart you on the biig journey, matey.” 

He gave Andrj a friendly tap on the shoulder. Then he shook hands with me. 

“And you must be Mr. Nana’s good friend. Very goood, friend!“

I liked the man. Judging by the colour of his uniform, he occupied a position in the HERMES hierarchy higher than the orderlies we had met so far. A nurse. Not a doctor. A doctor would never confer so cordially with anybody. 

“Follow me, M’sieurs !” Uriel said. 

The room where the ultimate procedure would take place was painted dark green; it wasn’t a surprise that Uriel’s figure almost dissolved in the air. One felt like one was submerged under the waters of a southern sea here. There was a hospital bed on wheels, its head touching the wall. There was something like a night stand beside the bed. A sheaf of differently coloured cables and thin, transparent plastic tubes protruded from the “drawer” of the “night stand”. And that was all. 

“Is that all?!” I cried out in unpleasant amazement. 

“Is that aall, good friend?” The Caribbean prince echoed me, amused. 

“I mean where is the medical equipment? Where are the monitors?!”  

“Monitors.” For a moment he sank deep in thought. Then a smile lit up his face. 

“Don’t worry, good friend!” King Rasta soothed me. “In a moment we will have all the monitors in the world. The electronic gadgets are in the other room behind that thick glass over there. In a minute you and I will goo there and your hungry eyees will feast on monitoors. I promise.“ 

He leaned over Andrj, he searched for a vein in Andrj’s right forearm and installed a plastic cannula in it. Then he pasted half a dozen of electrodes on my friend’s other arm with medical tape. 

To distract myself from the sight of these grim preparations, I looked around once more. The walls were not entirely undecorated. On the wall above the bed there was a drawing on a piece of paper, the size of a standard schoolchild’s exercise note. The mastery of the artist was very primitive but the figures were clearly portrayed. 

In the centre of the picture, a large black beetle, standing on its hind legs, was pushing in front of him a ball twice as large as his height. The ball was apparently made of some sticky and messy stuff. The beetle had a human head and an opulent Rastafarian haircut. The face was grinning a cordial, jolly smile. A swarm of flies was following the beetle. Each fly had a pair of wings and a human face. The flies were grinning too. 

“That’s me, over there in the picture,” Nurse Rasta announced smugly. “A very pleased client painted me.”

“Here I am printed as a scarabaeus, and the flies are the souls of clients. The time I first saw this, I didn’t know a penny about scarabeuses, but the very pleased client explained. That’s the Egyptian shit bug, he says. But he is also a god. Aaall day long shit bug is rolling balls out of shit. Funny old gipsies. They believed the souls of new-born men came out of those balls. All this the happy client explained to me.” 

“For a moment I thought it was a child’s picture,” I said. 

Nurse Uriel turned to me. 

“It is a child’s picture.” His voice was slightly reproachful and slightly belligerent. 

I felt how a monstrous shit bug was rolling the earth beneath my feet, away from me.

Nurse Uriel stood up, ready for an argument. 

“Come on , man! Don’t make such long faces, good friend!” Rasta’s shook his braids.

 “Don’t children have their rights too, maan?”

“Shall we deny to our children the service of aall seervices?” 

By the singing notes of his voice, I reckoned that he was prepared to deliver me a biig sermon on the issue. He was not in a hurry, Andrj’s time was in his hands. Mine too. 

I decided not to give him the pleasure of an argument. 

“Tell me… friend,” I asked him quietly. “When did your child-client draw you as a shit-rolling beetle? Before or after you delivered to him the service of all services?” 

Rasta gave me a broad, well-meaning smile. 

“Ah, that’s my man! My good ole friend. Sweet and bitter to the end.” 

He pasted a couple more electrodes on Andrj’s arm, stood up and headed to the adjacent room. 

With his hand on the door handle, he turned to  face us. 

“I have finished here, old buddies. I will be ready to start in a minute. Mr. Nana, sweet dreams! And you, mister, Good Friend, you are invited behind the scene of life’s greatest shoo!” 

Then he discretely left us alone.

I rolled my eyes several time. My fists clenched and unclenched. My voice was hushed but there was a lot of screaming in my brain going on. 

“That man is mad!” I hissed. “You are mad too! And do you know the worst thing of all? I am the maddest man here, ready to win the mad-man competition!” 

Andrj smiled tiredly. 

“He’s quite all right. Us – as well. Everybody is doing his role and acting according to the script.” 

I shook my head. 

“There should have been a whole team here! A whole bunch of doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, neurologists and who knows what else! Not just one reggae-humming, pot-smoking rascal!” 

“No,”Andrj said. “He looks efficient as hell. I am even glad that I am rendering my life into the hands of a boy who doesn’t take life too seriously.”   

In the green room his skin looked more pale than ever. He looked like one of those life-size statues of men made of silicone and exhibited in the museums of modern art. 

“You already look dead,” I assured him. “Why don’t you just stay put, enjoy it for half an hour and we pack?” 

Andrj coughed out his answer. 

“I want to go through with it,” he said firmly. 

“See you in next life,” he said. 

When I stepped into the next room, I saw that the Caribbean Prince had not lied to me about one thing: the monitors. Monitors of every imaginable size blinked and peeped at us from the two opposite walls. The third wall was largely taken up by the transparent glass screen which allowed us to see every corner of the room in which Andrj lay. His eyes were closed. Was he asleep or - 

Nurse Uriel stood upright, facing the glass wall. There was a control panel at the level of his waist that looked like the control panel of a space ship from the movies. 

I was reassured. Everything was as high tech in the HERMES clinic as promised. But the most assertive thing was Uriel’s expression. His face was calm and serene. His eyes shone with an almost supernatural intelligence. As if he could see the beyond, the wider life, as Andrj loved to call that other kingdom.

Uriel was humming an unintelligible reggae tune (or was it a voodoo dirge?) under his breath . I stood next to him. My heart was pounding in my ears as loud as an orchestra of funeral drums. 

A few minutes passed like this, Uriel suddenly stopped humming and looked at his watch. 

About fifteen seconds elapsed before he looked at his watch again, an incredible cocktail of emotions sweeping over his face. 

I looked at my watch too. 

“Is something wrong?” A lump made of horse hairs was jumping up and down in my throat. 

“Fuck!” Uriel cried and ran out of the room. 

I started to count in my mind with mad hope, so I would save my heart from exploding. 

When I reached the number forty five, Uriel came back with another man. He was of unidentifiable age, respectfully bald and wearing an impeccable suit. He looked like a trumpet player to me. One who could unleash all the four plagues with a single blow of his trumpet. The Caribbean pirate stood close by him as if seeking his protection. He looked sheepish; he looked like a man who wasn’t sure whether he should have a bad conscience about a certain something or not have it. 

 “Good morning, Mr. Kostilkow. My name is Mr. Abadon and I am the lawyer of the HERMES clinic,“ the man said in a voice drier than the Kalahari desert. 

A lawyer!” I shrieked. “What for? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing has gone wrong for the time being, Mr. Kostilkow. And nothing will go wrong if all the interested parties conduct themselves cooperatively.” 

“All parties.”  Mr. Abadon repeated emphatically. 

“What parties!?” I shrieked, thus indicating that Mr. Abadon’s eloquence was completely lost on me. 

Nevertheless, he did not lose his temper. 

“Your friend there, Mr Nana. “ He pointed to Andrj through the glass wall, lying peacefully on his death bed. “He has signed in for an AR procedure in this clinic, am I right?” 

I remembered, that was the official name of the gruesome thing. I nodded vigorously. 

Mr. Abadon gave me an excruciatingly long, silent look. Then he dealt his blow. 

“Have you ever considered the fact, Mr. Kostilkow, that from a social, moral, and most importantly from a penal point of view, an AR procedure is in fact an act of assisted suicide?” 

Mr. Abadon knew how to talk to people to scare the shit out of them. My thoughts raced. Mr Abadon said that he was a lawyer. And Mr. Abadon knew the law. I remembered the long hours during which Andrj had persuaded me that everything he was doing was perfectly legal. Well, he had convinced me. But Mr. Abadon was a lawyer and he knew the law. 

Now. Seeing the whole thing from the viewpoint of Mr. Abadon, I realised that he was right. I remembered the documents I signed. I was an accomplice in assisted suicide! Documented on paper! 

The idea of spending an indefinite amount of time in a foreign gaol felt like a kick in the testicles. 

“I’m sorry, officer,” I stammered. “Andrj and I have just arrived in your beautiful country. We have absolutely no intention of abusing any law that you might have, concerning, concerning…” I babbled. 

“There, there, Mr. Kostilkow. I am not here as an officer of the law, but as an intermediator, acting in the interest of all parties concerned.” 

I nodded like a schoolchild to whom the maths teacher was explaining a problem at the blackboard. 

Mr. Abadon cleared his throat formally. 

“Let me summarise the case for you, Mr. Kostilkow. Our renowned thanatologist , Dr. Uriel, R. J., informed me that he has just injected your friend Mr. Nana, A. M., with a very intensive, potentially lethal substance, in accordance of Mr. Nana’s officially stated will.” 

I threw a surprised glance at the Rasta, reggae prince. At that moment the famous thanatologist, Dr. R. J. Uriel, PhD, smiled like somebody who had just stolen somebody else’s herd of cows. 

“Well,” I heard myself saying. “Isn’t this the end desired by all parties?” 

Had Mr. Abadon worn spectacles, he would have adjusted them and given me a pitying look. He gave me the look even without the spectacles. 

“The accent here is on the potentiality of the lethality, Mr. Kostilkow. In order to be really lethal the first substance has to be combined with another one, also administered by an IV injection. As to the method of administering this second substance, it is a fairly simple one. Its execution demands the pressure of a human hand over this button, here.“ 

To illustrate his point, Mr Abadon went to the control panel and pointed to a large red button. “You see?” 

In fact, I felt surrounded by an opaque, intransigent darkness. 

“Then, then why doesn’t Dr. Uriel push the button?” I bleated.

“Why don’t you push it!?” 

At this question of mine, Mr. Abadon raised his right hand in the air, finger pointing at the ceiling. He looked like a preacher who was about to pronounce the coda of his sermon. 

“We cannot, Mr. Kostilkow. Neither Dr. Uriel, nor I – Mr. Abadon - can push that button. According to the laws of this country, only a state official can cause the death of another person, be it an act of assisted suicide or not. A representative of the STAPD!” 

“Who?” I whimpered. 

“The State Agency of Premature Death,” Mr. Abadon explained complacently. 

Saying this, Mr. Abadon’s eyes turned to the door with a kind of awe. 

Dr. Uriel looked in that direction too. 

I looked at the door with a mixed feeling of awe and relief. 

“No one is coming through that door, Mr. Kostilkow.” 

Mr. Abadon averted his eyes from the entrance and fixed them once again on me.

“Why!” I shrieked. 

”There is the little rub. Dr. Uriel waited for the man to come, but he waited in vain. The STAPD agent responsible for this clinic always comes at the last possible moment. Yet he always comes. That, is so to speak, his sense for the dramatic moment.” 

I could swear in that moment Dr. Uriel and Mr. Abadon exchanged an amused look.

 “However, “ Mr Abadon proceeded, calm and indifferent as death. “He won’t be able to show off his dramatic talent any more. Not in the world of the quick, for that matter.” 

I stared at him stupidly. 

“He is dead,” he announced. 

He put a little smacking sound at the end of his announcement, like someone admiring the accomplishment of a great job. Only, what was the nature of that job, I wondered. The death of the state agent or Mr. Abadon’s pleasure at informing me about the facts? 

The lawyer proceeded in his orderly manner.

“Today, after Dr. Uriel informed me that the state agent didn’t turn up, I called STAPD headquarters and was told that he had died two days ago. The agency was not able to find a substitute at such short notice. “ 

“Today!” I said in a shrill voice. “What do you mean today? You guys learned about the death of the state agent forty- five seconds ago!”

“How does this change the matter?” Mr. Abadon asked complacently.

I have often marvelled at the speed with which fear turns to anger. 

I said: “All right then. Wake up Andrj and we will go home. You’ll have to give him back his money, of course. I don’t know yet what kind of compensation he will insist on. I would, in any case.”

Mr. Abadon gave me the look of a rattlesnake that had been stung by a mosquito.

“I am afraid, that Mr. Nana cannot be awoken, Mr. Kostilkow.,“ he said composedly, then he turned to the thanatologist.  “Am I right, Dr. Uriel?” 

The thanathologist nodded energetically, grinning widely. Whatever feeling of remorse might have visited the man a minute ago, it was now flown.

“What then?” I asked quietly. 

Just as often I have marvelled at how anger drains into fear.

Mr. Abadon was on a high. 

“At the very beginning of our conversation, Mr. Kostilkow, I had the privilege to say that the substance which now circulates in the system of Mr. Nana is not lethal but quite dangerous. It will quite surely bring about serious damage to his internal organs, which is not the explicit will of Mr. Nana. As his friend and supportive companion you know this, don’t you?”

“I do,” I whispered. 

“Death will be, so to speak, the only safe outcome for Mr. Nana in this situation,” said Mr. Abadon triumphantly.

Dr. Uriel gave me his million dollar smile. I was feeling as if I was on a marijuana-induced bad trip - the familiar mixture of paranoia and claustrophobia. But there was nothing like an abstract danger in the smile of Dr. Uriel. And are we not trained from a very early age to trust medicine men? I stammered.

 “Then, why don’t you -“ 

Mr. Abadon raised his hand in a pre-emptive gesture. 

“Let us not fall back into a sort of a circular argument, Mr. Kostilkow. No one in this room is in the legal position to push that red button.”

“No one but you,” 

I screamed. I couldn’t remember what words came out of my mouth. 

Mr. Abadon rolled his eyes, calmly. Bored. 

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know it, Mr Kostilkow. By signing on as a supportive companion, you have put yourself in the legal position of assisting Mr. Nana’s death.” 

He waved a paper under my noise. It looked strangely familiar. 

“Ohhh!” I groaned. 

“And don’t give me that cheap crap about the small print in the contract, Mr Kostilkow! The document is only a page and a half long and was read to you aloud.”

His last sentence had the effect of stopping my incoherent mumbling. 

Pleased at having my undivided attention, Mr. Abadon gave me a thin smile. 

“Now,” he said. “In the interest of Mr. Nana and all other parties concerned etcetera, etcetera, I invite you Mr. Kostilkow to push that button.” 

I saw myself and the two other men from above. I felt like a victim of a hidden camera TV show who was about to be told where exactly the lens was situated. Victim of a cruel prank, yet only a prank. 

“No!” I moaned. 

Mr. Abadon cleared his throat. He produced from somewhere a thin file and leafed through it. 

“Ahmm, I see here that your friend has only partial medical insurance. Shall I tell you what will happen if the procedure ends up partially successful?”

“No!” I sighed. 

“Your friend is already in great pain, Mr Kostilkow.” 

I looked frantically at Andrj through the glass. He lay peacefully in his sleep, or coma, or whatever state he was in. But the sight was not a reassuring one in the legal circumstances I, as a party, was in. We are trained to believe lawyers when we have no other chance of escape. 

“Push the button, Mr. Kostilkow!”

“Do it, good friend!” Dr Uriel murmured encouragingly. 

“Murderers!” 

I shouted at them. But deep in my heart I knew that they were not. They were thieves, thieves of human souls. 

I covered the whole distance from the clinic to the hotel on foot. It was supposed to be a good hotel – in the very centre of the old part of town. Andrj was not a stingy guy. He just didn’t have enough dough to spend on both airplane tickets and a nice hotel. As if he had known what would happen to me today, and that I would need a good rest. At this thought my face flashed. Then tears started rolling down my cheeks. The tears didn’t last long on my reddened, angry face.

Black snow was falling from the sky, but this could surprise nobody nowadays. Black snow is heavier than the ordinary type  and not as cold. The snowflakes felt like tiny fingers that brushed over my lips, tap-tapped on my nose and stuck in my ears. They were cool like the fingers of a dead child. 

There were not many passers-by at six o’clock in the evening and whenever I met somebody, none of them looked suspicious. Nevertheless, I looked behind me many times. I was still not sure if I had not done something illegal today in the clinic. When, according to my Google maps navigation, I neared the hotel, the pedestrians became still scarcer. I knew this was quite normal for Northern cities; their inhabitants still turn in early. 

The hotel was a classy one indeed. Rectangular interiors, marble and brass. It looked like a mausoleum. 

The lobby bar wasn’t dead, though. A fiftyish-looking barmaid, slim, long haired, very attractive, threw me a look and a smile. She looked at me as if she had known me for years, as if she knew where I had been on that particular afternoon. I went straight to the lift. I didn’t want to hear about the truths of life from the beautiful lips of a wise barmaid. 

I finally found some time to take out my mobile phone from the pocket of my coat. It felt sweaty like the skin of a frog. . 

“How are you, honey?” The tender, sympathetic voice of my wife gave my heart a healing touch. A flood gate broke inside of me and the tears burst out. 

“They made me…” I whimpered into the receiver. 

“They made me kill him!” I wept. 

“Honey, what are you talking about?” 

“They… push the button,” I sobbed. 

“Where are you? In the hotel? Listen, why don’t you pour yourself a little something, take a deep breath and tell me what happened.” 

I followed her advice, except that I poured myself a glass of water instead of alcohol. I could brace myself enough to tell her the story of what happened in the HERMES clinic. 

“Oh, baby, it must have been an awful thing for you!” my wife said sympathetically. Then she added: “Is Andrj all right? I mean… under the circumstances.” 

“Yes. He rests in peace now,” I answered gloomily. 

“They said they didn’t have the right authority to do it. They started it but it was I who finished him! They made me push the button and inject some poison into his veins!” 

I rambled over and over into the telephone. But my wife is made of sterner stuff than me. 

“Haven’t we read about it: the reaction of the bystanders can be very intense?“

She tried to rationalise the state I was in. 

“I wasn’t a bystander! I was…” 

“Honey! Let’s recite our poem! “

 That's my wife! She would never let me ruminate about anything!

“OK,” I agreed docilely. “You begin!”

“If I should die,

And you should live … ” 

She recited the first two lines in a firm voice, then left a pause. 

“And time should gurgle on,” I ventured with a wavering voice. 

“And morn should beam,

And noon should burn,

As it has usually done …” 

The voice of my wife chimed in my ears like a choir of church bells. 

“If birds should build as early,” I began, then she joined me immediately. 

“And bees as bustling go,—

One might depart at option

From enterprise below!”

We had learned this poem by heart and we made it our habit to recite it together whenever the subject of death came into our conversation. We recited the poem in quite a  synchronized fashion now. Our voices had mingled into one, and I had the feeling that despite the two thousand kilometres that separated us, she was in my hotel room, holding my hand. 

“’Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand

When we with daisies lie,

That commerce will continue,

And trades as briskly fly.

It makes the parting tranquil

And keeps the soul serene,

That gentlemen so sprightly

Conduct the pleasing scene!” 

There came a long pause after which she asked me: “Are you all right now?” 

“I am. It is a real mystery how she can write so serenely about death.” 

I felt the colour of anger rising to my face again. 

“Of course Andrj is all right! “ I barked into the phone. 

“They had polished this AR technology almost to perfection. That is why they have the cheek to play with people and get on their nerves.” 

“How long was he dead, honey?”

“There was a thanatologist there, a smart and handy guy. He kept Andrj dead for two minutes, then they resuscitated him according to the AR rules.” 

“What does AR stand for, anyway?”

“Assisted resurrection.”

“Wow! Cheeky indeed! Ambitious!”

I chuckled.

“I went to see him, and he smelled like a rotten rat; when you die like this, you leak juice from every possible orifice of the body.“

“Oh, that’s gross!” My wife protested laughingly.

 “So I go there to see him and he starts dribbling, babbling out thanks. How grateful he was that it was I who was responsible for that life-altering experience. Blah blah blah… The usual stuff of near-death travellers.”

“So, they told him, did they? About your crucial role in the play?” 

“That rascal Uriel had told him everything. There was this thanathologist in the clinic and he told Andrj what had happened behind the glass wall. Maybe he did right, I don’t know. This Uriel doctor. I might have got a heart attack and Andrj would have never understood what an ass he actually is.“ 

“I wonder where they get their high from?” My wife mused. “All these AR maniacs. All these otherwise quite normal people like Andrj. Is it the rehearsal of death? Does this make them go to such lengths, at such a risk?” 

“It is advertising, I guess. It is them NDEs.” 

“What’s that?”

“NDE. Near death experience. Advances in medicine have produced thousands and thousands of death survivals, all of them saying how beautiful it was to die. Then some smart ass gets the idea: why don’t I make a business out of it? Bang!” 

I was well informed. I had read several books on the subject. So, I proceeded. 

“These guys – the journeymen. They feel awfully smug about themselves.” 

“They form a spiritual vanguard whose reports of mystical und paranormal experience have no less than planetary and prophetic significance.” 

The last words I had read in a book by a guy called Ring.

  “Honey, “ she said after a short pause. “Don’t you find one thing very suspicious?” 

“What?” I asked. 

“Why aren’t there reports about bad trips anymore? Like in the middle ages. Why are the NDEs of today so sugary and positive? All of them?! I mean - the lake of fire, the thongs of the devils, the stings of the hell scorpions - where did all this stuff disappear?” 

“This might be a very good point,” I murmured. 

“Let’s take you favourite Dante. His out-of-the-body journey climaxed in a happy end. Sure. His book is a comedy, after all. Still. Dante had a pretty rough time in the underworld even though he was only a bystander. I mean, where is this bloody Hell!”

I thought on that for a while. 

“Maybe there are people with negative experiences,” I mused. “But they hush it all up in the press. Like the number of children dying in Yemen or the rape-rate in Mexico, you see? This AR thing has grown into a mighty industry. Money has its way of talking.”

“What was Andrj’s personal experience?” My wife enquired. “Did he go through the famous tunnel of light?”

“He doesn’t recall much of a light. There was no light, no darkness, neither heat, nor cold in the place he was in. Everything was filled with grey and lukewarm amniotic liquid, he says. It was not thick or suffocating, but rare and breathable like the wind and air.”

“Poetic!” she smacked her lips.

Andrj had been frank with me, I thought. He had not spun some yarn as to how transformed he felt and how spiritually enlightened he was. He had not been flying up a tunnel, but sliding down a spiral, an enormous one, a breathtakingly enormous spiral, whose radius was larger than the milky way. Wheels had grown out of Andrj’s legs and he had been racing down the spiral with a cosmic speed. He didn’t care. He felt no pain and no fear.

He came out of his near death experience not happy but pleased. Andrj adored spirals, considering them the most perfect form in the universe. 

“Andrj told me he learned one thing - that everything there is, is destined to descend.” I continued to share Andrj’s story with my wife. “The human being, the universe, everything is falling down. It is the philosophy of his favourite teacher - Democritus.” 

“I’m not sure.” She mused. “I think I have seen a picture similar to Andrj’s vision. An old one.”

“All the worse for him, then!” I grunted. “He spent a fortune only to see an old picture in a wicked kind of dream.”

“Perhaps it is like this. “ My wife sighed. “Maybe the pictures and the dreams we will see there are all just the same. Only they last a little longer.”

“Enough philosophy for today!” I snarled. 

I heard her smiling.

Edited by Tom Phillips